Pennsylvania Playhouse presents tap dancing musical 'Crazy for You'

jThere’s nothing like a tap-dancing musical extravaganza to round out the summer.

That’s what audiences will get in the Pennsylvania Playhouse production of “Crazy for You,” says James A. Vivian, who makes his playhouse directorial debut with the high-energy Gershwin show.

“This is a classic-feeling Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers-style romantic comedy that appeals to so many people,” Vivian says. “It’s hilariously funny. It’s the kind of musical that is pure escapism.”

He says a cast of 28, including 11 talented “Follies girls” will light up the stage in the homage to 1930s era musicals. The musical opens Friday.

In the story, stage-struck Bobby Child is sent from New York by his mother to foreclose on a theater in a small town in Nevada. There, he falls in love with Polly Baker, the theater owner’s daughter. Disguised as New York producer Bela Zangler, Bobby decides to stage a show to raise money and save the theater. Polly falls in love with Bobby/Zangler, so when the real Zangler and his Follies girls arrive, the quiet town gets a lot more lively.

Vivian says the show has two “dynamite” leads in Tyler Fernandez and Vanessa Ruggiero as Bobby and Polly. Both are Freddy Award winners. Fernandez won for his role of Professor Bhaer in “Little Women” at Notre Dame in 2012 and Ruggiero won for Reno Sweeney in Nazareth’s “Anything Goes” in 2013.

The show is a modern rewrite of the 1930s musical “Girl Crazy.” It includes all the songs by Ira and George Gershwin from that show, but also incorporates songs from other Gershwin shows. “Crazy for You” won the Tony Award for best musical in 1992. Songs include “I Got Rhythm,” “Slap that Bass,” Embraceable You” and "Someone to Watch Over Me."

“They look like a chorus line right off the Broadway stage,” he says. “The tap dancing is spectacular.”

The cast dances to a live pit orchestra led by Nancy Shoemaker, who also directed the music for Freedom High’s “Crazy for You” in 2014.

Vivian says a challenge was the more than 80 costumes required, particularly for the bespangled Follies girls. He says costume designer Paula Hannam borrowed many of the costumes from Phillipsburg High School, which presented “Crazy for You” in April.

Joey Schubert is choreographer.

“She’s done a ton of shows in the Valley,” Vivian says. “When I’m directing a show and she is choreographing, I am happy. She is so fantastic.”

Also featured in the cast are Brian Houp as Bela Zangler and Chrissie Check as his love interest and the dance captain Tess. Kris Shea plays Nevada saloon owner Lank and Victoria Scovens is Irene, the rich New York women to whom Bobby has been engaged for five years.

Vivian says Brett Oliveira’s set will feature pieces that swing open for Nevada scenes and swing close for New York scenes.

Dan Domenech: from understudy to star

Everyone knows the story of the understudy who finally gets to go on for the star and then becomes famous. For Dan Domenech, it happened not once, but twice.

Domenech, who starred as Che in Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s hit production of “Evita” last summer, returns to give a one-night-only concert, in which he will sing Broadway songs and talk about how a little bit of luck led him to debut on Broadway as the star of “Rock of Ages” and gave him what he calls “unintentional Internet fame.”

His concert, “Bootleg Famous: To Broadway and Beyond,” is at 7:30 p.m. Monday on the Main Stage of Labuda Center at DeSales University.

Domenech says “Bootleg Famous: To Broadway and Beyond” is a new 90-minute show he created for the Shakespeare Festival. It is his first solo show and he will be accompanied by world-class pianist David Gardos.

“I want to get the message across we are all alike,” he says. “There’s no secret. It’s about putting in hard work and time.”

He says he will sing songs from shows he’s been in, as well as from other shows, including “Big: The Musical,” which he calls one of his favorites, “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” “Jekyll and Hyde,” “Songs for a New World” and an unreleased show “Starblasters.”

“I’m excited to go back and see everybody,” he says of the festival. “It was a great experience.”

Domenech, who grew up in Long Island, says he was a typical kid obsessed with theater.

He got involved in community theater, but says he was being practical when he went to community college to learn computer graphics. But he wasn’t very happy.

“I couldn’t wait to get out of class, so I could go and be in a show,” he says.

So at 18, Domenech started going into Manhattan and auditioning for shows.

“It took four years of auditions to get cast,” he says.

At age 22, he was cast as Paul, the leader of the life support group, in the touring production of “Rent.” He toured with the hit rock musical 2002-06.

“All of a sudden, I was getting paid for something I had been willingly doing for free,” he says.

Domenech then won roles in the pre-Broadway runs of the musical “Sister Act” in 2006 and 2007 and “Wonderland” in 2009. In 2010, he was cast in the first national tour of the new show “Rock of Ages” as an understudy for the lead role of Drew.

“I went on once,” he says. “But the whole creative team was there that night.”

After seeing him, they asked him to portray Drew when the show opened on Broadway.

Domenech made his Broadway debut in 2011 in the plum role of the wannabe rocker who belts out classic 1980s rock hits. He also toured with the original band from “Rock of Ages,” which included members of some of the original 1980s rock bands.

“It made me feel like a complete rock star,” Domenech says.

In 2014, he was cast as the “hipster/dork” in the Off-Broadway production of “Heathers: The Musical,” based on the 1988 cult film. He also was understudy for the male lead of Jason Dean.

Domenech says he only went on in the role of Jason Dean “a handful of times,” but one of those times a fan with a video camera took a bootleg video and posted it on YouTube.

“I started seeing my social media blowing up,” says Domenech. “I had new followers from all over — Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, China.”

The video went viral. Domenech is now known as much for that performance as for his starring Broadway role.

Domenech says producers tried to take down the bootleg video but it had the “Streisand Effect,” which is when efforts to remove something online cause it to pop up somewhere else even more. It is named after Barbra Streisand, whose effort to suppress photos of her house in 2003 drew more public attention.

Most recently, Domenech was cast in the Off-Broadway revival of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” a revue that opened last week.

“I’ve done Broadway and I’ve done a show in a barn,” Domenech says. “It’s all about the people and the experiences. I get to play pretend for a living and it’s pretty awesome.”

Local makeup artists get Emmy noms

Joe Dulude II, who has been teaching a class on theatrical makeup for five years at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, has been nominated for an Emmy Award for his makeup work on “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” which aired on NBC on Easter.

Dulude, who also was the makeup designer for Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre’s “Beauty and the Beast,” was the head makeup artist for “Jesus Christ,” which starred John Legend and Sara Bareilles.

Dulude, who has done makeup design for Broadway and London’s West End for 15 years, also did the makeup design for “Wig Out,” a Muhlenberg show about Harlem’s drag ball scene, a show in which he also participated in drag as a judge at the ball.

Dulude says he grew up loving monster movies and taught himself theatrical makeup techniques. Later he got a job with MAC Cosmetics. When he was asked by another artist to fill in on makeup for a production of “Into The Woods,” he made contacts that led to him working on “Wicked” and other Broadway shows.

Next he will be designing makeup for “Beetlejuice,” which heads to Broadway next spring, and the national tour of “Anastasia.”

Another makeup artist with local ties also has been nominated for an Emmy.

Hellertown native Glenn Hetrick was nominated for his work as special-makeup effects head on the CBS series “Star Trek: Discovery” in the category of outstanding prosthetic makeup for a series.

Hetrick has been working on special effects makeup for the series since it launched in 2017.

A 1990 Saucon Valley High graduate, Hetrick has made a name for himself in the special effects field with his company Optic Nerve Studios in Hollywood, where he has been a designer, fabricator, sculptor and painter on television series such as "CSI:NY," "Crossing Jordan," "Heroes" and “Mad Men.” He also has done special effects for “Journey 2: Mysterious Island,” “The Hunger Games 1, 2, 3 and 4,” “Marvel's Agents of SH.I.E.L.D,” and “Extant.”

Since 2011, Hetrick has been a judge on the Syfy original series “Face Off,” which features makeup artists competing for a cash prize.

The 70th annual Emmy Creative Arts Awards will be at 5 p.m. Sept. 8 and 4 p.m. Sept. 9 at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be aired at 8 p.m. Sept. 15 on FXX.